Incumbent Rose Marie Belforti on Tuesday won re-election as town clerk in Ledyard in a race that divided townspeople and drew national attention over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Belforti, a Republican, defeated Ed Easter, of Aurora, who launched a write-in candidacy some six weeks ago after learning of his opponent’s stance against the state’s recently passed Marriage Equality Act. Belforti’s position polarized residents in this mostly rural town of about 1,900 residents on the east side of Cayuga Lake. The township includes the village of Aurora, home to Wells College. By mid-afternoon nearly...

For all you junkies out there, Nate Silver has an interesting breakdown of the GOP wins in NY-9 and NV-2 last night. He uses a broad measuring stick known as the Partisan Victory Index (PVI) to calculate how big a victory was scored. The PVI is "a measure of how the district voted relative to others in the past two presidential elections."

Obama and the Jews; It's Over – The Backstory Circulating in New York Newsrooms Tonight. The election results that are sending a Conservative Roman Catholic Republican to Washington over a Yarmulke-wearing Jew… in one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in America is sending shockwaves through New York newsrooms and Washington tonight. The 70-30 break among Jewish voters against Obama's candidate is monumental, and it has huge national significance. The Jewish voting block went huge for Obama in 2008. Voting D has been in their genes since FDR, but no more Obama’s blatant mistreatment of Israel, his total incompetence...

<p>Republican Bob Turner’s victory in the closely watched special election to replace disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner delivered an unmistakable message to President Obama: Be afraid, be very afraid, of what’s coming down the pike in 2012.</p>
<p>That a Brooklyn-Queens district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 could swing to a GOP candidate who was outspent and outmanned -- and where unions poured in enormous resources in the final hours -- doesn’t bode well for a president facing re-election in a queasy economy.</p>

One could almost hear the collective gasps of Democrats from New York to Washington Tuesday night, as conservative Republican Bob Turner won the nationally-watched special election for the seat of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D.-NY). In a New York City district (Brooklyn-Queens) in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3-to-1 and which has not had a Republican House Member since 1922, the 70-year-old retired television executive defeated State Assemblyman and Democratic nominee David Weprin by a margin of 50% to 47%, with the remaining 3% going to Christopher Hoeppner of the Socialist Workers Party. Speaking to HUMAN EVENTS a few...

With the outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away, President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke Tuesday when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic district that has not been in GOP hands since the 1920s. Bob Turner, the winner, cast the election as a referendum on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and, in the state’s Ninth Congressional District, which has a large population of Orthodox Jewish voters, the president’s position on Israel.

Republican Bob Turner holds a six-point lead in next week's special election to replace disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., according to a new Siena College poll released early Friday that shows voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic district are poised to deliver a stinging rebuke to President Obama and his party. Turner leads Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin in the poll, 50 percent to 44 percent. Six percent of likely voters in the Sept. 13th election are undecided. Discontent with Washington and the president is at the heart of Turner's shocking upset bid. In a district he won by 11 points...

As disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner, once a major player in New York City politics and a prominent Democratic Party attack dog, enters the X-rated dustbin of history, the question of who will replace him in the state's ninth congressional district now takes center stage. Normally, the only question regarding Gotham congressional races is how left-wing the Democratic victor will be. In anything now regarding Anthony Weiner, the circumstances are hardly normal. On its surface, NY9 is bedrock Democrat. A Republican has not represented any portion of it in decades—and Weiner's predecessor was none other than his mentor, Sen. Chuck Schumer....